There are plenty of reasons to appreciate the Chevrolet Traverse, Buick Enclave and GMC Acadia, but it seems that these crossovers have what it takes to wear the title of America's most American vehicle. And who better to determine this than Washington, DC-based American University? Frank DuBois, an associate professor at this university's Kogod School of Business, has come up with a new model for determining which cars have the highest content of US-sourced labor and parts, and he named the General Motors Lambda-platform triplets as the most "American made."

Unlike the Cars.com top 10 list that had five "import" cars, the university's top 10 (which actually consists of 34 vehicles) only has one, the tenth-place Toyota Avalon. Oddly enough, the six-way tie for tenth place also included the Buick Regal, which was given a full score for research and development despite being derived from a European-designed Opel. Head on over to the Kogod website to see the full list of vehicles on the American Auto Index, and let us know what you think in the comments below.

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This ranking system just arbitrarily gives 6 points for Detroit brands for \"profit\" regardless of if they are profitable or pay US taxes. And they ignore the fact that Toyota/Nissan/Honda report profits for their US operations through US-incorporated subsidiaries, paying taxes in the US while being listed on US exchanges with a large number of US investors... And they give Chrysler the full 6 points despite the fact that it is majority owned by a foriegn company (not to mention giving the Fiat 500 points).
And they give 6 points to Detroit brands for R&D, even Korean designed, developed and engineered cars like the Spark....
Essentially, they gave extra points to Detroit brands, which then stacked the deck to make them seem more American than their actual operations, supply base and vehicle assemply would dictate.

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You may have a counter arguyment if you actually noticed it on their list. It is on their list at #58... It would be close to the bottom if they had not given so much credit to the car for its brand name. And it would fall behind many cars on the list that were designed in California and/or are built in Mexico with much higher US domestic parts content, but have foriegn brand names.
http://kogodnow.com/autoindex/#autoindex

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Oh my definitely biased in this study. So a company is penalized for doing R&D here and in another country? So Ford and GM should be penalized too. Leave it to autoblog to post this bias story to bring out the redneck yacht club.

Japan has given billions of assistance to it's manufacturers starting with national healthcare and pensions system. Then there is the debt per capita, Japan's is debt is 3 times America's despite American soldiers and taxpayers protecting Japan from all the enemies it's made over the past centuries.
South Korea bailed out and restructured KIA and Hyundai as well as blocking American companies from buying them.
Ironic how so called American conservatives are such useful idiots for Asian state socialism.

MAX, list for us the dollar amounts handed to Honda as you claim! Compare and contrast to the billions given by USA taxpayers by handing over the ~50% of the stock of Chrysler to the UAW pension fund free and clear!

@ Churchmotor - THERE IT IS....I guess I just needed to wait a lil longer to see what your TRUE agenda was....not about the products, OR the study, but AWWLL about Obama/Unions/Politics....shoulda known!

Ah, ctizzle must be a Democrat, just look at all those stereotypes he's throwing out.
On that note, you must be an entitlement UAW worker liviing in the Ghettos of Michigan, sitting back smoking your dope, drunk on your beer, milking GM dry.
See how that works ctizzle.

churchmotor, it isn't that hard to google, is it?
GM to Invest $2 Billion in U.S. Plants, Adding 4,000 Jobs
http://media.gm.com/content/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2011/May/0510_bigbang.html

LOL at this survey.
They give a Buick Regal the MAX score fore R&D.
All the R&D was done in Germany, and many of the Regals were IMPORTED.
Yet it gets maximum "American made" scores.
Just below it is the Honda Odyssey. The Honda Odyssey is a 100% designed and engineered in the USA product, and only built in the USA, yet is receives half the possible R&D score, and ZERO for profit.
What a bogus survey.

Honda`s, designed and built by low wage, temp workers. That doesn`t count. Why do you support these people, churchmotor? Recalls, safety problems, do you actually drive these Asian vehicles? My suggestion to you - -try to take more pride in America.

Agree 100% with Churchmotor! get your facts straight Richard! Buick Regals are nothing more that rebadge Opels and are 100% German made!
Honda Odyssey is 100% designed, built and engineered here in the USA.

"Buick Regals are nothing more that rebadge Opels and are 100% German made!"
No, it isn't.
"North American production at General Motors of Canada's Oshawa, Ontario, assembly plant was confirmed on November 25, 2009, and production began at Oshawa Car Assembly in February 2011."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buick_Regal
"Honda Odyssey is 100% designed, built and engineered here in the USA."
No, it isn't.
"The Chevrolet Malibu, Ford Explorer and Honda Odyssey fell off the AMI, as all three cars' domestic parts content fell."
http://www.cars.com/go/advice/Story.jsp?section=top&subject=ami

I never said any of that was not true, jase. Duane's statements are patently false and I gave the links to prove it. Just because this study is wrong does not give anyone license to refute it with more bogus information. I don't have any clue how much R&D did or did not come from the US for the Regal or the Odyssey. I do know that the Regal does have a good deal of US sourced parts such as body panels and major drivetrain parts. Similarly, I do not know how much of the Odyssey R&D is US sourced other than what you are telling me because I was unable to find the information. I do know that the Odyssey no longer is on the cars.com AMI top ten list because of foreign content. Again, Duane's statement is patently false.

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Wow what a bunch of BS. Many foreign cars do their RD here in the USA. Toyota, Nissan, Honda, BMW, VW, Fiat/chrysler (now) and many more. But according to this bogus study, you lose points even if RD is done here but you\'re labeled a foreign company. Also, many foreign companies have their HQ here. But again according to this BS study you lose points again if the main HQ is foreign. So factor in those points an the Avalon would be first place considering the body category uses more American parts at 40 vs 38.5 for the bloated GM triplets.

THANK YOU!!!! All the foreign brand lovers, and Obama/Democrat haters will be quick to point out all of the manufacturing in the US, but let's be real....they're doing it BECAUSE ITS CHEAPER on their bottom line. Not to boost the American economy.
Everyone knows that Japan manipulates their currency, but once they can't keep up enough for manufacturers to remain profitable, they build the cars in a cheaper market.

While some R&D is certainly made here by the imports, it is a fraction of what GM, Ford, and Chrysler do in comparison. I live in Detroit, and I can tell you that there are tens of thousands of well-paid white collar people doing engineering, R&D, marketing. While I dont know the actual number, I'd bet that the USA-based R&D staff of the rest of automakers is a small fraction of what the Big 3 employ.

I'm tired of these stupid "MADE AMERICA" wars. Most people can't even fallow the parts and money trails left by these companies. All I care about is buying the best products. What's wrong with that?? If it's a peace of junk, I don't care if it's made in America or not. If it's the the best product, that company will get my money. That's what should push American buyers and workers. We should make the best products, don't just buy American labels for the sake of buying American.

WOW, how pathetic. So after reading the list the ONLY way the GM cars beat out even Toyota or other makers was
1) To rate all home brands a six for profit margin and foreign makers a 0.
2) Give home brands double the R&D score a foreign brand makes (6 vs 3 - because all those cars sold here were by GM were designed here obviously)
If you take away the profit margin score and score both the same for R&D the Avalon would actually be #1. Ouch.
So a contrived scoring system by a group which is probably nothing more than a lobbying firm in disguise or working for one.

Much of GM's current offerings are designed by Opel & Holden. They simply had someone in the US reskin them, and bam, a made in US vehicle, which in reality, is really much less US than the this skewed data shows.

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Seriously flawed study. The Sonic is a Korean designed car and the Regal is an Opel. How on earth are they considered "American Cars"? Meanwhile the Dodge Caravan gets dinged for final assembly a few miles east of Detroit in Windsor. Canada isn't Korea.
I think most people are more worried about price/features/reliability. We just like to be able to be smug when the vehicle that has all that was built in our area. Personally as long as my vehicle was built somewhere with the same labour and environmental standards I am happy. I am not going to turn my nose up at a McLaren or a Mercedes unless they transfer production to China.

Seriously flawed comment!! You have absolutely no knowledge of how vehicles are designed, now do you??
I think that most people are seeing how much the US economy is benefiting from the resurgence of the US OEM's and are seeing that the significantly larger volume of highly paid engineers, technicians, suppliers etc. that are resulting from this are what is driving our economy forward!!
Those of you who think that supporting OEM's who have the majority of their development staff, and suppliers highly paid staff located in other countries really, really need to look at what is driving our resurgence! I'm sorry for you, but you need to see what drives our economy, just like other countries see the truth!!
You claim that foreign OEM's have large staff's in the US, but look at the facts - Chrysler has more people working at their technical center in Auburn Hills than ALL of the foreign based OEM's have in the US and they have the least amount of staff of the US OEM's - look at Ford's staff in Dearborn, MI, GM's engineering staff in Warren, MI (hell, look at how many people work in just the Vehicle Engineering Center building) compared to the foreign based OEM's staffs!!
You really need to understand how important other countries value their auto OEM's and stop being so blind!!!

Agreed. Seems many of the folks here posting think that the 5% it costs to assemble a car is the only factor in what it actually takes to actually bring a car to market. I wonder if they tell all their friends that they \"built\" that Ikea desk they assembled.